Swedish film wins top feature award at Durban International Filmfest

NEW DELHI: ‘The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared’ by Swedish director Felix Herngren won the Audience award for features at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF).

Based on the internationally best-selling novel by Jonas Jonasson, this energetically black comedy begins with irrepressible pensioner and dynamite expert Allan Karlsson’s escape from a retirement home. His subsequent cross-county shenanigans are interspersed with flashbacks to a past studded with extraordinary events and famous historical figures. The film received nearly unanimous votes of excellent from the DIFF audience.

While ‘The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared’ won the best feature, the DIFF 2014 audience award for best documentary went to ‘1994: The Bloody Miracle’ directed by Meg Rickards and Bert Haisma.

As South Africa celebrates the 20th anniversary of the advent of democracy, ‘1994: The Bloody Miracle’, chronicles the many deaths and widespread chaos in South Africa during the early ‘90s when the country made its transition into democracy.

More than 700 industry guests from around the world attended DIFF and its sister event the Durban FilmMart (DFM). The festival had 202 films spread over nine venues and more than 350 screenings. With just over 30,300 seats occupied, including workshop and attendance at DFM, attendance at the festival increased slightly, with the number of sold-out venues increasing dramatically.

More than 2800 people attended the beach screenings, including the annual Wavescape opening event as well the additional four outdoor screenings funded by the British Council and the National Film and Video Foundation. As a visual literacy programme, the festival once again presented a programme of youth-oriented films for more than 4000 students from schools in the region.

The Durban International Film Festival took place from 17-27 July in Kwazulu Natal.